In Caracas, water more precious than fuel

The entrance of the Mariposa reservoir. Caracas must pump its water an average of 800 meters (2,620 feet) upwards from the six reservoirs supplying the city. (Anatoly Kurmanaev/Bloomberg News)

The carcass of a dead dog floats on the lake that supplies tap water to 750,000 Venezuelans in the capital. Witch doctor Francisco Sanchez has just dumped the previous night's sacrifice from a cliff, contaminating the resource that has become more scarce than gasoline in Caracas.

The water from Lake Mariposa, polluted by sacrifices from a local cult and waste from urban sprawl, is pumped to a 60-year-old treatment plant that lacks the technology to make it safe for drinking, said Fernando Morales, an environmental chemistry professor at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas.

"The treatment process has not adapted to the steady degradation of the water source," Morales said last month. "I wouldn't use this water at home."

Weed clean-up at Mariposa reservoir outside of Caracas, whose population has grown by 800,000 residents since 1997. (Anatoly Kurmanaev/Bloomberg News)

Eight kilometers (five miles) away from the lake, in Caracas, sales of bottled water are booming, with families paying the equivalent of $4.80 for a five-gallon jug — twice the price of gasoline.

The socialist revolution implemented by late President Hugo Chavez redirected funds from state-owned companies to reduce poverty and widen access to education, health-care and housing. It built 422,340 homes in the past two years.

But it neglected basic services in a country that has the world's largest oil deposits and eight times more fresh water per capita than France. Blackouts and water cuts have become weekly events in Caracas, and when water does flow, few dare to drink.

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In 1998, a year before Chavez came to power, state-owned Hidrocapital had an annual budget of $250 million, said its former vice president, Norberto Bausson. Hidrocapital's budget fell 49 percent to 25 million bolivars ($9.7 million) in 2010, the last year the Environment Ministry published a detailed report on spending plans.

Spokesmen for President Nicolas Maduro and the Environment and Information ministries declined to comment on the Caracas water supply.

When a main pipe burst last month, 60 percent of the capital was without water for two days.

The water crisis is among other hardships affecting Venezuelans: Shortages of imported goods are stoking the world's second highest inflation after Iran. Real wages fell 9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to the central bank. The public-sector deficit will finish the year at 11 percent of gross domestic product, according to Bank of America.

"Not a drop of water has been added to Caracas' supply system in 15 years," said Bausson, noting that greater Caracas' population grew by 800,000 residents to about 5.5 million since the last reservoir or processing plant was built near the city in 1997. "The network is falling apart."

"No one is bothering me here at all," Sanchez, 42, said as he prepared a chicken for sacrifice.

Ten years ago, Mariposa was a sunbathing and sailing destination. Today it is a haven for followers of Santeria, a mix of Christian and West African beliefs.

"I moved here two years ago because I wanted to get deeper into witchcraft. People come to worship every evening from the city," Sanchez said.

Dozens of animal carcasses were unearthed when the reservoir was last cleaned, four years ago, said Inmer Parra, a councilor at the Los Salias municipality, home to the lake.

Caracas must pump its water an average of 800 meters (2,620 feet) upward from the six reservoirs supplying the city. An outmoded system of 86 pumping stations is operated by manually turning about 1,000 valves, said Bausson. A breakdown in any part causes supply cuts affecting at least one Caracas borough every day.

"I have to get up at 4 a.m. to load the washing machine with clothes," said Bilenis Gonzalez, 24, a babysitter in western Caracas. "Water stopped coming to my house during the daytime over a year ago."

Hidrocapital President Ernesto Paiva and Manuel Regino, Venezuela's fourth Water Vice Minister in 11 months, declined to be interviewed.

Hidrocapital's website says, "We can guarantee that the water which reaches your home is 100 percent potable."

But Morales, the chemistry professor, said the utility's water treatment is inadequate for the level of contamination. The chlorine kills organic bacteria while leaving viruses unharmed. Getting rid of potential viruses would require molecular sieves and modern biological monitoring systems, which don't exist in Venezuela, Morales said.

Hidrocapital stopped publishing results of sanitary tests last year, said Bausson, who now directs water policy at the opposition alliance Democratic Unity Table. The law says the information must be available publicly.

The majority of Caracas' water comes from River Tuy, born in the hills of Aragua state about 50 kilometers west of the capital. Until the 1980s, the valleys through which Tuy runs were an agricultural zone. Today, they are part of Caracas' urban sprawl, collecting the waste of 690,000 residents, according to the 2011 Census.

Instead of trying to clean Tuy, the government is building a dam on River Cuira, which flows through a sparsely populated national park and remains clean, to increase water supply to Caracas, according to Morales. The work, which began in May 2011, has yet to finish, a year after it was scheduled to end.

Diverting water from Cuira won't guarantee the water quality, as much of the contamination occurs after the processing plant, while water sits in old tanks and then travels through rotting secondary pipelines to people's home, Bausson said.

The water is provided by private plants from wells and mountain streams in Los Teques area near Mariposa. Household consumption of bottled water in Caracas grew 39 percent since 2010 to reach an average 125 liters a year in June, said Rosibel Chacin, account manager at market research company Kantar Worldpanel.

Price controls and dollar shortages make the water business harder, said Kiara Santucci, owner of Zenda, the only Los Teques water company to sell five-gallon jugs that are government-certified.

Two weeks before the April 14 presidential elections the government — seeking to slow inflation that has since quickened to 42.6 percent — forced Zenda to lower the price of the jug by 26 percent to 20 bolivars. A can of Coca-Cola costs 15 bolivars.

To stay afloat amid price controls companies are "cutting corners" on filtering, Santucci said Aug. 23. The government doesn't test bottled water for quality, Santucci said.

"I don't trust the water, including the bottled variety," said Nancy Santa Fe from a Caracas shantytown, who when interviewed last month was spending her 14th day without running water. "Even people in the slums are investing in in-house filters to be on the safe side."